I must admit to be slightly caught out by the arrival of this month’s Tree Following: I woke up this morning and realised that today is last day for sharing the post with the other Tree Followers (7th to 14th of every month is the time frame). I duly waited for daylight to make it’s steady appearance before marching down to Rookery Park to see what was going on with our Avenue of Limes.
Missed it!
Last month the Avenue was still green, with only the first signs of yellow appearing here and there. In the space of a few weeks the tree have been completely denuded. I was a little surprised that it had happened so quickly; the Lime lined roads near us still have a sparse covering of yellow foliage:
There could well be a variety of factors accounting for the difference: the slightly more sheltered environment of the suburban road rather than the open park; the regular pollarding of the roadside trees keeping them in ruder health; genetic differences between the two groups. All that aside, I was surprised to have completely missed the colour change of the park-dwelling trees. Here and there, a smattering of leaves remained attached to the trees:
I managed to find a few of these leaves hanging low enough to take a couple of close ups:
Mysterious Growths
On my way out of the park I noticed that one section of the Avenue (one which I rarely walk down as it leads to a different exit to the one I usually use) had a number of trees with extremely dense growth around the crown:
I have noticed Lime trees are a little prone to this sort of behaviour, although I’m not sure why. I assume there’s an environmental consideration, as three trees on this particular section are showing this growth, but none of the others in different areas of the park are.
Well it was a bit last minute but I feel like it’s been an interesting Tree Following all the same. You can find more such posts by following the link below:
Thanks for reading!
It’s surprising how quickly some tree leaves change colour then drop whilst others linger longer. This avenue of trees sure looks different leafless.
It looks like those lime trees have mistletoe growing in them but presumably they don’t.
Yes I thought it was mistletoe to start with. It’s just dense growth with a couple of nests in there.
It’s always fascinated me why lime trees have that type of dense growth, usually the ‘skirts’ that so many limes have, but also those higher up as in your photos.
Here in Edinburgh too, some trees have lost their leaves much quicker than others. Overall it seems as though there are more leaves still on trees here than is usual for the time of year.
Yes, I’ve noticed it around the base of Lime trees too, not up in the crown like these ones.
Until this week it still seemed like a lot of leaves were hanging on. During this week there’s been a steady rain of falling foliage with just a few oak trees still clinging on.